Gimkit.com
(I am not affiliated with Gimkit. I just want more people to know about it because I think it's an amazingly fun way to teach!)
Overview
Gimkit is a freemium-based learning platform much like Kahoot where you can create a set of questions to have your students answer individually on their internet enabled devices. Unlike Kahoot, each question does not come up once. Similar to flashcards, students can practice the questions over and over randomly at their own pace. To make this fun, Gimkit helps you put your questions into a variety of games to play.
Features
Create a deck of questions called a "Kit" using text, images, and/or your voice.
- Multiple choice questions can have up to 4 answers and allows multiple correct answers.
- Text input questions can also have up to 4 correct answers (perfect for practicing vocabulary!)
Use your Kits with a variety of games.
- In the free version of Gimkit, there are always three games available for free. These games rotate, so don't plan to use one too far ahead!
- Pro games can be played with up to five players with a free account.
- Tip: go to settings and change the language to Japanese to make some of the games easier to play with your classes.
Game Types
The Floor Is Lava
- Students answer questions to earn money in order to build their tower as tall as possible and outrun the lava that is increasingly rising as time goes on.
Snowbrawl
- Students run around a snow-covered world throwing snowballs at each other and earning points for KO's.
- They answer questions to receive snowballs (you can decide how many they get per question).
Humans Vs. Zombies
- The class is split in half into a team each of humans and zombies.
- Students answer questions to receive money to buy Health Point related effects (increase HP, increase max HP, decrease HP).
- Both teams lose 1.5 HP per second.
- See which team can last the longest!
Other Games
(I haven't tried these in class yet.)
- 2D games: capture the flag, tag, Fishtopia (answer questions to receive bait, then go fishing and sell your catch for money), Farmchain (farm simulator type game), Snowy Survival (one person starts with a curse and tries to infect the rest of the class by throwing snowballs at them)
- Trust No One - an Among Us/Werewolf type game
- Draw That - a Pictionary type game
- Infinity Mode - Buy the infinity stones and see if you survive the snap
- Boss Battle - one person vs. the rest
- Super Rich Mode - earn money for the sake of earning money
Etc.
My Game Recs
- Exciting, fast-paced: The Floor is Lava, Snowbrawl, Capture the Flag, Super Rich Mode, and Teams
- More relaxing, at your own pace: Fishtopia
Prices
You can get a teaching account and play with your students totally free! 3 games are always available for free. To access the other games, a subscription is required ($10/month or $60/year as of writing this). If you create an account, you automatically get 2 weeks free trial without inputting any payment info so it's very easy to test it out and see if you like it!
This is a great resource! Thank you for sharing, I'll be sure to use this in my classes!
wow, a great alternative to kahoot and it's not blocked on my school network. The only negative is the UI is all in English so my students might find it difficult to follow, HS students could probably manage.
@Tohokuteach There's a workaround for that! If you go to settings you can change the language to Japanese and allow Google translate! It doesn't work for the 2D games, but it's a lifesaver for games like The Floor is Lava!
Thank you for sharing!
Are the students able to see the questions on their tablets or just the answers?
@Sean1112 Everything is on their tablets! Unlike Kahoot, the students work through the questions randomly, at their own pace. The host display shows the general situation for the whole class (no questions at all).
Oh, I see! Nice, thanks for sharing this!
Also, is there a max amount of players
@Sean1112 For 2D games, the max is 60 players. For non-2D games, I think the max is like 500. But If you had to have more than those amounts, you can just host two games. I've had at least two or three games running at the same time before!
When I used it, it did not work out well for me and my ss :,) When playing the games, the actual questions themselves were being translated, giving away the answer or making it completely incomprehensible. Or sometimes, the screen would go blank when they weren't answering questions. I think this is a great website and was excited to try it but perhaps because it's still new, or me being in the countryside so connection might be iffy- but definitely test it out beforehand.
Thanks for letting us know about it though! When I go back to the US to teach, I think this will be a valuable tool to use to make things more engaging for ss!
@Hototeki I'm so sorry it was that bad! I've been using it a ton all week but that's never happened to me. I can't imagine why your questions were getting translated... I use Japanese and English in mine a lot and that doesn't happen.
Sorry it didn't work out 😔 I plan to use it for math when I go back to the US too. I hope it works better for you then!
I am desperate to use this but it has been a failure. I tried in two classes but just around 10% of the students could log in. I am distraught. It looks perfect for me. I love that the students have to type the answer and they get bombarded with the same questions. IT IS SO GOOD, but it doesn't work so my heart is broken.... if anyone have any suggestions that have worked for them please let me know. I am currently going through the connection issues help page on gimkit.com.
*anyone has any suggestions. It works for some students and the IT dude said he got approval for the website from my Board of Education, so it must be a connection issue (right?!). Dodgy Wifi at the schools?
@jiggswalsh Can you describe the problem you're having? The students don't actually need to log in! Have them go to gimkit.com/join and enter the game code and a name, and you should be good? Or can you not get to the website? Are you getting to the "Are you a robot?" page? My other suggestion is to make sure kids are typing in the . and the / in the website address. If it's none of that, can you describe the specific problem you're having?
By "log in" I meant get into the game. They can get to the join screen, input the number and their name no problem. But as the game is loading on their chromebooks they got an error message like "reload the page and try again". Doing that helped some students, but still not enough for it to be a useable activity (I think 3-5 students out of about 30 got in). I saw no "are you a robot" checks. Maybe I am a robot?!
@jiggswalsh Nope! Not a robot then haha. My next question is about what game you were trying to play. I believe I encountered that problem when trying to play 2D games on my phone. I think the game might have been too heavy for my phone to handle in that moment? Were you trying to play the snow ball game or a game where the kids each have their own character to move around? Unfortunately, it could also be an internet issue, which we might not be able to fix.
Yeah it was a 2D game (snowball). I have reached out to the guys who run it and they have been in contact. Hopefully the issue can be rectified. Unfortunately, I am not sure I will sign up for a subscription if I can't get the 2D games to run.... That's the real selling point for me (plus the students have to type the answer! Which is so underused on these types of websites). Thanks for your replies!
@jiggswalsh No problem! Good luck!
While they are trying to work things out for you, might I suggest you try out the non-2D games? Honestly, my classes have so much fun with the Lava game. They really love it! Your kids might enjoy it too :) I've also had some success with Super Rich Mode.
I have been a GIMKIT subscriber for over two years now and I can tell you that it is really worth it! There are times when the site lags probably because the server is busy or something. This is a great tool to get students excited about writing ( especially the tenses of the verbs)! I used to set all of the games to translate the website in Japanese but I find that it can be troublesome. Instead, I would do a demo on how to do the games, show how to add or buy some power ups and so far it has worked. In my area, we use iPad and it has worked really well. It may take some time to get used to but I assure it is a great tool for teachers.